Manual retopology tool

I’ve been looking through nomads features and I am amazed it can do so many things. However, in my opinion one thing is missing, a manual remeshing function. Specifically I am referring to something like the Quad Draw function in Maya. Would be really amazing to be able to create clean lowpoly meshes for baking.
Thank you for reading. ^^

9 Likes

As a primary sculpting app being versatile I am not seing the point of adding, technical production pipeline feature in it ?
There is already plenty of other and better solution on Pc. Quad draw/blender retopoflow/3Dcoat topogun etc…

Emulating the standart workflow on production with an ipad app doesnt feel appealing to me.
Especially tidious and manual work like retopology.

Nomad might not have vocation to be the blender of Ipad. Plateform are different for different usage.
Jack of all trades master of none.

My humble 2 cents-

I would argue that I don’t always want to sit at my desk to do manual retopo work,

And sometimes I just want to be able to go in and fix a part of the mesh that has got a bit awry.

Also, if I am going to retopo in blender, I might as well sculpt in blender.

9 Likes

My point is
I think there is some miss conception of what each software should be doing and feature they should get.

Nomad is a sculpting app pushing for accessibility and easiness of workflow in order to create an experience that help you create anything without carring about Topology and polygons technicality from polymodeling and subd workflow
As a reminder the app is done by 1 man and because of that need to be somehow focus.

Here you are pushing for retopo tools that are done by third party crews even for the devs team of Autodesk/Blender. (Maya bought the quad draw modeling toolkit plugin an integrate it to the soft)
(Anybody that would like to do some correct retopo in blender would use Plugins like retopoflow done by external team)
Without even talking of specialise software like topogun.
I hope this shows you how a retopo tool feature complete is hard to pull off.

And if your answer is :

  • I just want to do some little retopo to fix some part of the mesh
    I would argue that none of that cannot be done with the sculpting tools at your disposal for the exact same look.

You can take my answer with a grain of salt but I have to raise my hand when I see people wanting to push square in circle because this is the workflow they know and are used to.
Polymodeling/subd and Sculpting are different workflows

Even in Zbrush nobody is doing retopology there. U can do it but this is just not efficient and you can have the same result with the sculpting tool at your disposal.

1 Like

I’m totally agree with Softz.

If it’s not workable then it’s not, but as I said it’s a “nice to have” not a necessary tool.

That said I withdraw my support for this feature then.

3 Likes

I think that there is a misunderstanding when it comes to this request, for my part I would like to have it too, but not necessarily in nomad, why not a third party app. You have to understand that the iPad is an extremely powerful tool, and the fact that you don’t have to switch constantly from a pc, mac to the iPad is very comfortable for creative people. Moreover, it allows you to work absolutely everywhere. Finally this is just a thought :thinking: , why do retopo on iPad for my by I wait, even more… Rigging, skinning, animation I think the m1 is quite capable of it in fact, a light version of Blender would be :star_struck: anyway I digress. But at the same time what’s the point of having a machine that can make the best coffee in the world and says put a low end coffee

5 Likes

Honestly I would love an ability to manually retopo, and being able to kick back and do it on my iPad would be far more relaxing than my computer some days, or when I want to take it with me on the go and have lunch while I retopo away.

4 Likes

It can drastically reduce file size as well :slight_smile:

3 Likes

I can´t understand you guys wish of reproducing limiting and tedious workflows into sculpting apps.
Retopo as well as Uv are definitely not creative approach to 3D but just there because of computer limitations.
Most of the new apps and way of sculpting this days are allowing you to set you free from those constraints.

I am simply not sharing this approach of reproducing whatever game asset technical pipeline into creative apps on Ipad.

The size issue that @r_moseley_art bringed is a real problem tho. Zbrush and other soft tend to get that workaround with automatic remeshing to a lower polycount.

But manual Retopology ? I am really not a fan of that approach. Maybe as a really trimmed down retopo tool like zbrush have to get some base shapes you would like.
But I am pretty sure you could do all of it with sculpting tool anyway.

I hope that this nomad app wont transform into any technical heavy pipeline 3D app and remain on the “creativity first” side of things.

2 Likes

Manual Retopology I can understand, it can easily be done with DynTopo and just the Paint tool. UV’s and using Nomad for pipeline work is actually more beneficial for its architecture. Nomad has to work universally on all devices, iPad and Android - if it was iPad centred only, it would be a lot more powerful. Nomad works within a defined set of constraints that’s actually more beneficial for lower end of the poly models because majority of users and devices that can access Nomad Sculpt can only achieve this from hardware limitations. iPads are an exclusion in some sense because Apple have a larger share of that market compared to iPhones, but still nothing compared to all the Android centred OEM’s. Nomad won’t get too technical unless it breaks free from this constraint, creativity covers a lot of spectrums, I can’t think of many better examples than game design.

No it wouldn’t make any difference.
Everything is tied down by development, not hardware power.

It’s true for almost 100% of Nomad, except maybe the rendering side but it’s a complex subject.

2 Likes

My thinking exactly! Blender lite would be amazing. Or at least something to make a clean lowpoly for our beautiful sculpts. Then again it might be a huge amount to ask from a one man team, that I don’t know since I am no coder.

1 Like

mmm I dunno, would be a lot of work. Manual retopo within the sculpt tool implies this :
Manual and semi auto retopo tools (quad draw, partial auto quads (topogun way))
High subdiv details reprojection
Normal map details projection on low mesh
Sounds like a lot of work to me. Actualy those are the best features of Zbrush, and are the essential keys to the Game industry.

I’ve found the dyntopo and smooth set to 0% works well.

The only reason I ask for it is that dyntopo adds triangles, decimate adds triangles.

There’s no safe way to remesh only a small area to a lower poly count and retain quads and the app itself warns about sculpting triangles.

That said, I am happy with the combination of dyntopo on smooth at 0% to keep my total vertices below the roughly 4million at which my tab S7+ seems to crash out.

I find kind funny how retopo seems to be like the backwards process of drawing 2D, where you draw sketches first and then the more complicated drawing. While in 3D we sculpt the more complicated model first and then the “sketch” for different purposes… Low poly will always be lighter than high poly so even if we can have objects with millions of polygons it also means we can have millions of low poly objects. It’s kinda like movies being 24fps, its gonna be lower that other options so even if having higher FPS gets easier it also means having 24fps its evens easier (like for rendering VFXs).
I imagine it could be super relaxing to retopo in the iPad. Even more than Sculpting in the ipad :sweat_smile:

1 Like

Exactly the thing I had in mind just go announce for the IPad, called CozyBlanket. Looks really cool!

2 Likes

There’s a retopology app coming out soon! CozyBlanket!

I think that with nomad Sculpt, these two softwares will become a 3D killer !

Only, for everything that is hair (made with particles) textures and other, it will have to go through blender for the moment. In the meantime, stephomi is doing his best to offer a maximum of features! I bought the software almost at its release, and in all honesty, the software is not what it was at the beginning and offers already a lot of things! Please be patient :slight_smile:

Make a maximum of sculpture with nomad and with the tools you already have! Once cozy Blanket is out, you can have fun with retopology!

Here the link for CozyBlanket :

2 Likes

No, it can’t…as you don’t answer the mails and requests for taking part in your beta :rofl:

I said we had to wait xD!